Surangama Sutra Class

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the such a little better
tell you how are proposing that we through this close
ha
i got into the state you're gonna sutra i actually and the reddit and in the middle of reading or so
i wanted to do a class on this year ago the sutra so that i would read the rest of the visible
so
the reason why i started studying he was because
my study the books of record curry up
over and over you
some other there's a couple of there's actually two cases that are
of the books that are quotations the cases themselves are quotations from the year ago sutra
the one that you probably all know that even if you don't know about is a the what about the sixteen body surface in the bath
because here it also costs a her there's a picture and further video that house sixteen body surface
in the best
and that is an incident from the and should go to sutra were sixteen but herself as enter the bath and when they
actually pay attention to the sensation of water on their skin they become awakened as they entered the that
it isn't where the cases of the book with record and there's also a case ninety four and the book of record is it was just a quotation from the shooting down the sutra but apart from those two cases there are numerous other occasions in the book of record
where the show gamasutra as mentioned in the commentary are referred to by different masters and as you study the records of the masters as a number of cases were assessed such a master was enlightened getaway was reading this sharing sucrose i'm being a hopeful type were so i thought i should read the sutra
i hopes that the i too would he touched by the buddha and the course of my doing it so far and the luck but still like to try
so but this yoga sutra is despite all these references to it it's not a year
it's not a very high class sutra really it's it's little confused and it's almost certainly although in the days when the ancient china masters were reading it they probably
accepted that it was a bonafide sutra written in with translated into chinese as all the sutras were but it's now
a clear to scholars that this is not the case that the down the secret is furious sutra compose enjoyed it
then
you could tell right away i mean it really sounds it's it's it's actually well i'm sad unfortunately the reverend but
to me it seems really clear when you read it that it's a chinese invitation of
the indian style of protracted logical it's exposition of a buddhist ideas and it's just a weird the way the it sounds is very weird as
so
ah
you can tell right away with that's the case
and also the
the
whole burden of the sutra is the exposition and this mantra ensuring our mantra
which is used in some of our ceremonies
more esoteric ceremonies so you so we you know it's part of our important part of our tradition
diamond transmission ceremonies some
it's a very funny premise also the only
the only
english version of the sutra there's two english versions of the sutra
the one that i've been reading is seven volumes long
by master who are great chinese master who
live in california and started the city of ten thousand buddhas in town agenda
new laptop from san francisco goldman gold mountain monastery and has a lot of western successors he's passed on now
and he the sutra is known as long as seven volumes but
master why whenever he translated to supra he didn't translate sutra and leave it at that he would always interpolate his own commentaries so of the seven volumes i don't know how many words are actually the sutras probably one big volume
the rest of it is all his commentary
but his commentaries always really interesting because he tells his followers chinese buddhists legends and lore and a lot of fascinating stuff that you find out
but he's a very old fashioned kind of it
fellow and his point of view is very sort of a mixture of folktales outrageous humor and total literalist orthodoxy so kind of unbeatable combination so it's quite fun to read
the other translation is by charles look and i started reading that one when i first started studying a suitor and i couldn't make head or tail out of it it turns out that system absolutely terrible
translation to the point where i mean i thought well you know how bad can it be you can always gonna get something out of it but it was so bad that it wasn't worth reading so i would not recommend that you read that when i probably the library has both the seven volume in one volume but because it a fact
that
yeah know did a nice it would be really nice if master why i would have given a complete text of the sutra and then after that it'll come in on either we can xerox you know pages but he didn't do that either hit you know they'll be one paragraph and then nine pages of commentary and and another paragraph and the ten pages of content when the too much
us to sort of splice together all this
so we're sort of stuck basically we have a class without a not really having text that you can study however since the surgery itself by its nature to so sort of mind-bogglingly impossible to read even at its best it's probably not that bad and we can start to text
is probably better off and so so it's dubious actually whether this is a good idea what i hadn't got around to telling you is it's dubious whether this is a good idea to try to have a class on the she ain't gonna sutra under the circumstances
but
we'll find out in the course of doing it whether we are
wasting our time are we doing something that's not we're doing the will try and i'm sure they'll be some grandchildren
so
ah yes there's a partial translation in used by always there all i don't know that
pretty work with
i will respond with his bible dwight howard and big shoe white down oh right i didn't know it is from nineteen thirty
i haven't seen it
it was seven volumes cost sixty hear anyone's interested where i am from yeah it's nice incredibly cheap six survivors sixty dollars you
but like i say it's this is this is for like hard core
and what you call it lunatic buddhists that this is that this is a mine only school texts i should mention
and so it's it's a
basically lot of that is programmatic in other words
in the center of the mood will make a point it since of so it's about the nature of mine so actually the teaching of a suitor is sublimely profound and worth contemplating
but to a great extent it's programmatic in other words the buddha will make a point about who make us particular point about
the senses and then
too many many pages repeating the same material for the eyes than maybe ten pages on the eyes ten pages on the ears ten pages on the nose and it's all were virtually the same thing you know going through all the senses on the sense objects and and in the eighteen doctors one thing after another like that
however it is it is so i find finding it and enormously helpful text from my understanding and practice because it is
in a way the the doctrine of the mine only school which is as i said earlier since the zen masters study the sure karma sutra it's one of the
philosophical underpinnings of zen
and and so you you can understand as in literature and the cons much better if you appreciate the mine only the doctrines and they are by their very nature very difficult to speak about and understand because they are speaking about
the nature of mind
which is a as a bigger space and the bigger container then
subject object
the mind is equivalent to mine and by its nature that kind of thinking is not available the discriminative mine so it's a kind of a yogic anti logical it's a the sutra is
it's taking you through a yogic process of undoing more or less undoing all of your
sort of thinking and leaving you
to recognize that the nature of mind must be something beyond your kim
and i am but it's all this all this is sort of done with a very systematic logical kind of wet speaking with you'll see a minute but the the original the premise of the sutra and i'm going to what i'm going to do here is i've i've read through the first
four volumes
so what i'm going to do is an in rapid order try to catch you up read some of the highlights and talk a little bit about what has happened in the first volumes and then i then i'll take maybe more than when we were the one class and then gone from their nervous that
it's we grieve presents so
highlights of what i dread and those of you who can get ahold of the text want to read you can certainly also
you'll know where where we are each each week
the premises sutra is very interesting
and the scene is set as always in the sutras with a retinue of disciples around listening to the teaching and
but then where's and under like what's wrong what whereas the how come he's not here would happen
in a nod as absent and so they're wondering you know what happened to it turned out that another was in
was just about on the verge of doing like the worst thing that you could possibly go
if you're a buddhist monk which is he was about to jump into the sack with a prostitute this were happens in the beginning sutra and the reason why he was doing this is because he was overcome
by a powerful mantra that was
a spelling and it was placed upon him by the mother this this prostitute was in love with him and wanted to marry him so
got her mother who ambition of of some kind to put a spell on an arena so that he didn't know whether you're coming or going
the buddha of course saw that this was happening
and immediately sent my usual you had a counter much which is the shooting down a mountain which blew away the the ladies magic and say the nanda from and what would be have been considered a fate worse than death
this set of buddha said to another
i see that your understanding is quite limited and on otherwise you would have been able to easily blow away this magic and
on this problem so now i'm going to teach you the nature of mine
of you understand
and i remember in tassajara less last practice period we were talking about different things one of them was issuing a sutra have another one was
the the women disciples of buddha
so that we could familiarise ourselves with the names that we checked in the mornings and we were reflecting on the fact that i get one talking on which was all about the virtues of unenlightened month and and the crux of the of the matter was
eh
that another it was because of anon this intercession
that women were accepted into the ordination
a family of the buddha because another as you know his mother stepmother a very sincerely sought ordination and the buddha refused her
but ananda interceded on her behalf and
then finally the buddha related and then we have the whole tradition of the chimneys in buddhism
so i was mentioning that another is famous in zam or not being enlightened that under him now he
new made have to know the teachings better than anyone
he actually could repeat on teachings and new them are really well he was not awakened and so when they had another story the first council and and the first consulate to the food is passing they wanted to
keep track about teachings and write them down and under only people who become to the console were in law have enlightened people
so they had this problem that amanda
have a job because he was the only one in new all the but he wasn't enlightened so he wasn't allowed become so they they were like desperate to get an enlightened you know so that he could come to the meeting you know and then which they did the last the eleventh hour
so ananda is known for this known for being unenlightened and being
also a very friendly and attractive person
so i was sending them
it's a good thing that another was unenlightened
because of phenomena has been enlightened maybe he would not know he would have had a peaceful
abiding
in relation to the non ordination of women and he will realized that the ordaining women and the nine dating women
is equally the same so why should we worry
but fortunately for us and on it was not in line and he thought it was important
that would be ordained so he interceded on their behalf and women were day so
it's dubious to me there's advantages and disadvantages is therefore to enlightenment and buddhahood in this case i would say my pin so so anyway this was one way more famous taxes on the pictures of and enlightenment
so this but this is also the case in the sutra it's exactly this is another virtue of inland as on enlightenment it's exactly known as unenlightened that occasions this profanity teacher because if a nanda and been enlightened and then buddha would never have had to stir himself to give this teaching about the nature of mind so that and that would finally understand
and and not have skin problems anymore so anyway but that little bit of introduction
to give you a flavor for the sutra in a sense of what it's talking about i'm gonna ramble on read some stuff for you end up
to submit willingly comments as go on
and then allow you know it's going to stop every now and then see if anybody has any questions or comments
so
during down sutra
sharon gama we are told is to word means the and the ultimate durability of all phenomena
sure got the altar ultimate durability of often on them
so ah course the durability of author is exactly the fact that phenomenon us as we'll see
do and don't exist
thus have i heard
this fifteen pages of common for
first race were just get less of a heard at one time the buddha dwelt in travesty and the sublime abode of the jaded growth
and the jaded grove
as one of the most them
important places at the buddha time and there's a wonderful little story and we should all remember about j to grow there was what a buddhist most important disciples was named not appendix
not a kinda guy
when he first heard about the buddha we became enormously enthusiastic and he wanted to make a big offering
so
he tried to figure out what to do to need and the but didn't have a place to stay
once were wandering in which was their lifestyle but every now and then and rainy season they would come together but they didn't have a local place
to to come together so i'm not a picnic or thought i will
get a place for the good i will find place and he found this beautiful grove that was owned by the prince j
concern of the king percentage who figures and to this story the sutra
so clinica said i want to buy this growth for to get to the buddha and prince j to said
then once so
but it's they say no i won't sell it he he made an absurd
gesture he said of course i'll sell it all you have to do is cover the entire grow with gold coins it was acres and acres and acres of you know trig
rolling hills and trees just cover the entire thing without leaving any peace uncovered with gold and that'll be one price thinking of course it was like a joke
so an autocratic and proceeded to do exactly that covered the entire thing with gold and jayda was totally flabbergasted that going to get done this and he said well you know i don't want some this can't believe you did this by myself as not a pill with you i have to remind you that you are a prince and that
it is absolutely you will fall from the grace of being a prince if you go back on your work and use did say that so there you have to sell me
ah the land so he did but he said however you didn't put any goal on trees so there's trees though we want to me
head
he was thought that he had got pesto and not a again finally he decided that he would donate the treats himself and because he donated trees and was called the j to grow
even though it was actually not pinnacle who purchased the land and bid price so that's the legend of the to growth and that's where many suitors say that the buddha was teaching in january so there he was with gathering a great beaches twelve hundred fifty in all
all were great our huts without outflows
sons of the buddha's sounds of the buddha dwellers and maintainers they had fully transcended all existence and were able to travel everywhere and to accomplish the awesome department
so these were advanced students
very advanced they were our house with
completely conquered all their passions and
totally self possessed
an our outflows
totally without fear i'm afraid of death not seeing any difference between life and death with magical powers and
department that club would would clearly show their attainment soon as you looked at them could see that they were very special beings
they followed the buddha and turning the wheel and were wonderfully worthy of the request stirred and pure in the videos the monastic rule they were great exemplars in the three realms
that that's the realm of form this world in the realm i mean the realm of desire this world
come under to in a world of for which is the first meditation room and foremost rooms second mutation of so they were all and mastered all that
by took living beings across a liberated them pulling out and rescuing those are the future so they could transcend all the bonds of dust
so had some older guy bodies magical bodies as i could to bodhisattva work saving beings and all kinds of
realms and their names were sharing program going on my couch for them of my trillion a coup trash and disability punish punisher and others and master why since a some really wonderful legends about all these
different characters but i don't i won't go into that moreover limitless projects were behind study and those with initial resolve came to where the buddha was to join the big shoes provera at the close at the close of the summer retreat
so other besides these small number of very very advanced disciples of the world there were other
solitary practitioners
who are who had completed their dime of study and were fully attained
and they're also others who had just ah
i found in themselves the initial resolve the initial commitment and vow to do the practice so in other words a variety of kinds of practitioners were all comey was the end of the summer retreat and they were about to have a ceremony of confession
which they would have on the full moon at the end of the summer retreat and this was a beautiful custom or which in which basically the monastic rule was red
and
sometimes in groups in pairs or small groups or in the whole assembly and a combination of all those things everybody had a chance to hear the monastic rule and to say
yes i have kept this no i haven't kept this or i didn't keep this very well and to fester each other how they were doing so it's actually an ancient ancient tradition of buddhism
think about how wonderful this isn't the way you know that that the periodically there's a regular time and practitioners come together and tell each other quite honestly here's how we're doing
when we have a commitment we have shared commitment together to do the practice and keep the rule in this case details of the monastic rule and let's ask ourselves honestly how we're doing with it
and help ourselves help each other to
commit ourselves more fully to him and go on
defense yeah we do adhere to actually what we do it in the priesthood increase me in the city centre i understand they do it everybody suffers of yeah it's actually a wonderful thing to do
ah yes as i know if immediately yeah it is
so that's what they were about to do there are some a few rules
this is that we were talking here about the monastic rule which is very specific and very strict as you know in in the sixteen bodhisattva precepts
are very broad and very profound they're not a lifestyle precepts sixteen bodies our precepts and zan don't commit you to living a certain lifestyle and they can meet you to way a deep sense of initiation in the commitment to ethical conduct
but with the understanding i think the feeling in zen practices that the precepts are
that their meet their meaning and their application in individual circumstances are always cons subject to our depths of our understanding so that in my opinion
it never makes sense in zen to say you grow up the precept you can say i wrote the precept that makes sense you say because i can have an inner sense myself that i'd broken preset and i can say that but because because it's such a matter of personal understanding
it's very difficult to look at somebody else and said they'd broken precepts may look like the have most difficult to say in ending in the traditional monastic rule it's very clear
and there are some precepts that bring about instant expulsion
in one of them is engaging in any kind of sexual activity which is why and another thing with it being on a point of being with a faceted is such a serious thing
hey were so the ceremony a specific place
roadies office from the ten directions who desired council in order to resolve the doubts in their minds
we're respectful and obedient to the awesome but compassionate one as they prepared to seek the secret meaning the awesome but compassionate when the first of course to the buddha
and
when to target togheter arrange to see sat quietly and peacefully and for the sake of everyone in the assembly proclaim the profound and mysterious the pure assembly at the banquet of dharma obtain what they had never obtained before
the immortals call of infrasound pervaded the ten directions and bodhisattvas as numerous as the sands of the ganges gathered at the body maanda with monetary as their leader so the color vinca is it sort of mythical bird that has a gorgeous sound and this is likely to the voice of the buddha
a so beautiful wasn't to the years
it was as if the buddha's voice would have pervaded the ten directions
ann romney's forty soft as listen
and then so he gave a teacher doesn't say what it was but it was very moving to everyone and they all appreciated then king it for the sake of his father the late king arranged on a day of mourning
vegetarian feast
i divided the buddha to the side rooms of the palace who welcome the together in person for the vast array of superb delicacies of unsurpassed wonderful flavors and himself invited the great he said
so i think this means of them today warning as the common cigar ceremony
concern that started in buddhist time
the many we know and no guyana's money guy
simon this was very common thing people would invite the bullet to their house for feast
and he would go into this de lona it's a very odd combination of things where monks are
austere they will need one meal a day
monks and nuns
but more often than not that one meal is an unbelievable party because people want to make a lavish offerings in the more and more lavish the more you show your appreciation
so
they do this today where
monks and nuns from much you for buddhists on a video is being a big feast round most at the time
in the city were also elders and lay people who were also prepared to see the song at the same time and they stood waiting for the buddha to come and see of offers
the buddha commanded manjushri and now you know we know was mentioned image as we were clearly in me
realms of
oh you call it
extra terrestrial magical
imaginative rooms because monastery was never nobody ever
and i thought that money sure was a flesh and blood crypt character he said
perfect body south the character i
so the buddha commanded magistrate to assign the body such as in our hearts to receive offerings in various things turn house only amanda
who having accepted a special invitation earlier had travelled far and had not yet return was late for the a portion of the summoner for the giving up the food amongst the song on it wasn't there no senior seated one or acharya was with him
so he was turning returning alone on the road already nice to the children alone now should be brother your sister monk case of trouble here in our to a pocket
i am
no
none shirt with a little monk as the a through said get
i'm not quite shy
oh acharya is means teacher at
on that day he had received no offerings and so at the appropriate time and i undertook up is begging bowl and as he traveled through the city bag and successive quarters
so
you went from her house without skipping enhance
as he first began to bed he thought to himself that down to the very last than a party donor and you offer food who had been his vegetarian host he will not be would not question whether they were clean or unclean whether they were shocked years of honorable name or channels like on t
same equality and compassion he would not merely select the lowly but was determined to be perfect all living beings and limitless merit and version
but on that already knew that the metallica the world honored one had admonished some booty than my gosh other for being our house was hearts were not fair and equal and he regarded with respect for the dollars is instructions in impartiality to save everyone from down and slander
so this is interesting the
master guan com answer and tells us that some booty
i like good food severity of you know was the
our hot associated with the understanding and emptiness
which is why in the diamond sutra stability is the interlocutor because subroutine the emptiness gosh
so it's interesting to note that the emptiness guy had a taste for a delicate food
so his ahead with which was usually given by the wealthy people
so stability his idea was see so i'm a buddhist monk you give me food and i eat that's nice but that but you get a bigger benefit than i get this is the way it works because you get to make the offers so that nourishes your wholesome roads and gives you could good of for the future so so good
these idea was that
it was a little bit like ronald reagan's trickle down economics theory this idea was that the wealthy and a lot more power and everything so they could use more marry him them more merit
so that they can benefit others with their extra mirror so that's why it's much better to beg from the wealthy shouldn't really nice too much time begging from the for
cause they will not get a great stock america's they'll be giving less good food they will get much married and then they can't really do that much with americans are only poor people so it's better for everybody this was some booty this is what they call this can do a story or something like that and religion so this was somebody's idea so not for his own appetites but for the benefit
a of all sentient beings he only meant at the homes of wealthy and the buddha criticized me for this and said no no no you should beg impartially now my cash offer on the other hand our zen ancestor you know more cash up his claim to fame is a subroutine was the
great master of emptiness of kosovo was the master of ascetic practices so zen really very has an aesthetic kind of flavor of teachings are
very my stick and expansive
the style style of it is very austere which is why my cash up and was selected fictitious lee to be the carrier of his own tradition from buddha anyway
while ever had the opposite theory of security because my akasha had a taste for austerities
now one of the little known facts about austerities is that austerities are very thrilling
did you know even here anyone here an aesthetic
that aestheticism is very thrilling
and you get a big high on asceticism and so they're all kinds of a garden guards against the monks being to aesthetic they actually had a list of
call it permitted aesthetic practices and a set of practices that were not permitted so that the monks she must monks actually the truth is have a taste for asceticism otherwise why the monterey you entered so why not do it even more so like
let's really have a very strict rule know like it when we want less sleep on the board you know and like prove to our to millions this kind of thing so you can really get into it and get more and more
inflated and excited and high off your asceticism so maga yeah was a little bit mining rock a shopper was a little bit like that and his idea was only back from the poorest of the poor people and the yeah of course the opposite theory of to his idea was well you know they
if you beg for me them
it's really good because you're giving them the merit they will need of that poor people and day unless they should be getting more american and rich people you know they need it so we should never go to which people only the pudding so the buddha
also criticized my cushion for for that
you shouldn't only go to the rich and shouldn't only got an uproar favor one over the other you should just go each asked course now that everyday lives in a segregated life depends on what neighborhood mean fits this is or of assuming a world in which was rich house when poorhouse when rich
as well for us but you don't find that now it's like you got on neighborhood and everybody's rich or poor
so you need a like a card zipper rental and one the and one to our house and without a chance to win the tournament
anyway
so the point is that and then there was being very careful
to beg in the in the proper way
having crossed the city mode he walked slowly through the outer gates is manner stern and proper
as he honored with propriety the method of obtaining food
so you were to most you know have very strict rules of comportment you should walk in certain way keep your eyes downcast and be very dignified monks were expected to be dignified who's gonna feel and undignified monk right
so yeah to be there i'm going to get fed better not least look like i'm on the outside lisa so he was paying attention that draft
at that time because i know that was begging in sequential order he passed by a house of prostitution and was waylaid by a powerful artifice by means of a mantra of a cappella religion formerly of the brahma heaven the daughter of matangi drew him into an impure matt
so i'm a question and impure matters but we get the basic a dish and the commentary does tell you that that she and onda was very attractive and this has happened to another actually quite a bit as many stories
nothing more attractive than a holy monk
i think at least this instrument happen and now that he was constantly being
in taste
by women who are always falling in love with them
and this was the case here and she wanted to marry him and she said to her mother and mother said that but he's a monk and she said well so what do something about so she gave him this smarter with her licentious body she stroked and rubbed him until he was on the verge of destroying the precept substance
i'm so we can see
and now it was it was believed it's a very fascinating discussion actually which i once research this years ago and this is a really interesting thing there was a there was the idea that when you took vows
that in the taking the the valley was as some sort of a almost like physical change in the substrate of your cellular resistance that's why says the precept substance
so that the buddhists believe and when you think about it especially in light of our presents a very far out in a scientific knowledge it actually isn't that far out an idea
the thought that that making a very firm commitment involved
which is then sealed with various empowerments and ritualistic stuff
che actually of you that it's not a trivial thing it's actually some sort of cellular change we think of it as a emotional change and what a spiritual change but
it was believed that there was actually as of change and substance of course you know substances empty so you can say what they're me but anyway
in the down push it says this and so
it was almost like he was now in danger of changing his form of life he had entered when you enter the the order you change your form of life in some way you become like another kind of a creature and now he was in danger of basically cutting it off and so this is really a big problem there's a tata
knowing and on that was being taken advantage of by the indecent artifice finish the meal and immediately return the king great officials elders and lay people followed along after the good a desire to hear the essentials environment
then the world out and one he admitted a hundred rays of jeweled and fearless light from his crown on his little toddler within the light appeared thousand peddled precious lotus pond which was seated it transformation by buddha in full lotus posture proclaiming a spiritual much
so in the meditation rooms which is like another the realms of form which is considered a different world from this world
imagine a way of life away of thought in which you believed that these mental realms that you actually could enter through meditation practice were
as real as this world
ah with different sort of laws of gravity and physics and all that and other kinds of beings lived in those rooms and what happened in those realms was effective in manner so the buddha than caused something to happen in one of those four rooms because observer
they could this is the symbolic higher
body of the buddha right is the body the of exists in these rooms and minted rooms and these are the
bodies that are depicted in in buddhist art
to start is that depicting a human being called shocking many bullets depicting an ideal being living in a the world of pure form and all the tankers and drawings and paintings or of those beings and sometimes like if you look at the when you clean it and since mall i think that this is right and she kept them but i think the incense born zendo and
you see it another depictions will depict a
the to the cycles of the buddha who are like human beings and they get all and they get cranky and and they often look like they've been through hell and back here
and then and on the incense or you see those some things like that then is the next of them the celestial beings from the form realms who are never don't get older always like twenty or something like that
the peak and the perfection of you know
human
beauty knowing that in the pink of life and they i have big and beautiful hair and ornaments and jewellery and or this their no good monks in most rooms and the good also appears with the top nine now
an a colorful environments and some point and solar so anyway that's all i have but the buddha causes us to happen and this lotus flower appears and the school down here as recited this mantra
ah and for the purposes we'll see if saving ananda he commanded manjushri who is also creature from this room to take the monterey and go provide protection and when the evil monster was extinguished to lend support and to encourage and and my family's daughter to return to where the buddha was
so you've got a daughter to a school say because she started evil person or anything
say it's not that will give it a hermit with the what she did a nasty it's like she also was under his felt like anybody who does things that are negative is basically under a spell that of confused karma nothing wrong but let's stop them from doing their works that are in saharanpur
is that is set up a i'm study all this time
because your teachings are very intoxicated night they're interesting
the colorful no wonderful and another love the teachings and was a great genius and the teachings but he just didn't have time to meditate and he wasn't interested so now and i'm just almost like had this terrible thing happened now he says i can now and finally ready to meditate that was this out is in your like tonight
okay now i'm ready to after all that now i'm okay i guess i'd better military now
and that's a time when when you're really deep trouble
then on the southern vegetation a high meditation i know i've said no i understand otherwise is like meditate live
at that time and resources as numerous as the sands of the gun she's great our hearts project as and others from the ten directions were also present
please that the opportunity to listen they withdrew silently to their seeks to receive the sagely instruction
so now the mood is going to this this is what mount that beginning of the suture who is not going to teach as about this mantra in the teaching that goes with it
in places basically to the now here goes you better listen
and snow starts the exhaustive
philosophical dialogue that people is going to engaging with under and others
about the nature of mine so i'll read it first part of this and see how far
i didn't have to take a lot of respect
just seem female
the three realms are
first one is the cut and run commodore to documents realm com and ah to and the canada to is this world it's the world of karma it's the world while we would call a physical manner and all the limitations of physical matter
no karmazin accommodate to their desire this food and there's going to toilet
you had that will become a doctor in the in the doctor the role of form the world in which all these forty sauces and celestial beings operate the world that we entered when we enter the concentration states
there's no going to the toilet there's no food was no sex on the mental
the gods are just constantly driven to eat by smell
they had said them as lunch
so this is a an idealized were actually it's interesting it's it's not so different i think in many ways from plato's idea of had the same idea the world of form click on the same leaving the same
terminology more list except that plato did not identify this with meditation practice
i've kept his promise
well there's a form that the formless realm is realm in which basically there's nothing there's no objects
yeah
so the formless room which is which is another meditative state but it's considered to be distinctly different you enter the world form and then when your concentration deepens had passed crosses a line and then you enter a trance state in which there is no experience based group
it's a harmless from his
to retirement i know that's our reproductive no not for one group of mates forms others comedy to rip it out to him in our reproductive but of it's reruns
three worlds
so let's just just give you a sense of the beginning of this and they'll skip forward to some of the more crucial moments but but i wanted to give moving on set the tone of your feelings from the beginning and sutra to go have to know that you and i are the same family because they were cousins
you and i are the same family and share the affection of a natural relationship
at the time of your initial resolve
to practice what were the outstanding characteristics which you saw in my dharma that caused you to suddenly cast aside that the kindness and love found in the world
so in other words what it was it about me another that made you take this enormous step of becoming a monk you must have been attracted to something in my dorm or what was it that jackie
the is that i saw that the target as thirty two characteristics which were so separately wonderful sony uncomfortable that his entire body had a shimmering transparence just like that of crystal
i often thought to myself that these characteristics cannot be born of desire and love why the vapors of desire or course and murky
from foul and putrid intercourse comes a turbid mixture of pus and blood
which means sperm eggs what her which cannot give off such magnificence pure enjoyment concentration of purple golden age and so i thirst for we gazed upward follow the buddha and let the hair fall for my hand
it's how the early or donations were quite wonderful
somebody would say like guy well
i'm not dancing on nothing in and the buddha would say come forth oh and then another with
take one step for something in them all their hair would follow immediately and robes would appear on
is what they say in central so
i know true that is but that's what it says
so
so the know that was attracted by this vision of the buddha is very body as being not of this world and saying that how could i could see that in an ordinary flesh and blood could not have produced something like this so that's why i easily let go in the world the flesh and blood world
i can see that this was much better by comparison
and then there is this sense from the perspective of the world you think like how can people become monks in of living's these restrictions and was terrible
the inside of that it's like oh my god we're living in this rarefied heavenly realm
beyond
these worldly tests
so this perfect life
so
that's the as answer to the question buddhist has very good and
you should all know that all living beings are continually born and continually die simply because and do not know the everlasting true the everlasting
catch that than we thought about what about improvements that improvements but these are born and die because they did not know the everlasting too much the bright substance or the pure nature instead they engage in false thinking
it has been so
since time without beginning their thoughts are not true
and so the wheel keeps turning
so that's
what a surprising thing so it saying that
the mind is actually everlasting
and somehow
totally true and unmoving in in without duration
beings don't serious
and they engage in false thinking which in somehow creates this world of flesh and blood with all its imperfections and it's the permanence in its
you know a disease and limitations on someone's because of the thoughts of the beatings which are erroneous in relation to the nature of reality that this world appears to be what it is
now you wish to uninvestigated bullet goes on i know you wish to investigate the unsurpassed bodie and actually discover your nature
you should answer my questions with a straightforward mine because that is exactly the way that the target as of the ten directions escaped birth and death
their minds were all straightforward and since their minds and words were consistently that way from the beginning through the intermediate stages to the end they would never in the least invasive
and i don't know i saw he's saying no i can ask some questions and with the truth you know just telling straight shooter and will get them we'll get we'll figure this out here so not i asked him
at the time of your initial resolve which arose in response to the to target as thirty two characteristics and thirty two marks in the buddha image is list of i'm fine
top that the years different things to me
what was it that saw those what was it that saw those characteristics and delighted and what saw those characteristics
banana said world on one this is the this is the way i experienced the delight that he felt i'm seeing the good i used my mind and eyes
make sense right here's my mind and my eyes because my eyes saw the target has outstanding characteristics
my mind
give rise to do like that is why i became resolved and nourished to remove myself from birth and death
hey
buddha said
it is as you say that experience of the light actually occurs because of your mind and eyes if you do not know where your mind and eyes are
you will not be able to conquer the wearisome dust
meaning the world and suffering in the world
well this is what we're going to this is this is the crux of the math than so the next passages are going to tell you that
so in other words you say he's raising the question where you you say that it was because of your mind and your eyes now we're going to investigate where exactly is your mind and where exactly is your eyes on this is somewhat reminiscent of the story of the second ancestor in my mind is suffering show me your mind
member it's very similar and that's where to that exact story is based on this passage i'm sure you're not searching for example the buddha goes on when a king's country is invaded by thieves
and he sends out his troops to suppress and banish them
the troops must know where the thieves or
yeah
it is the fault of your mind and eyes that you flow and turn
i am now asking you specifically about your mind and eyes where are they now
so the analogy of king and the thieves is not a and in an accidental analogy
your mind and your senses are like thieves they are robbing you of
your true world were true life
because you don't understand know you don't understand what the eyes arm with the mine is now if you're going to go a kasher if you send out an army to catch a thief you have to know where the keys is so now we're going to investigate where is your mind and where are your eyes course we all
all know where our minds are when her eyes are going so far less say that it's a brilliant were like an another and we have the same ideas and own eyes on shift except the know the has you can see match for buddhist we'll see those things most of us when somebody's privacy system
and i understand to the buddha where allotted one all the ten kinds of living beings in the world and like maintain but the conscious mind dwells within the body
and as i regard that to target as blue lotus flower eyes they too are on the buddhist face well you asked me where the mine in the eyes are it's very simple buddha mind is the by the eyes are right here on the beach virus that's where they give him in this one yeah
the same new seemingly so why you ask him he's is the question is would i want to say that a traveler be as is drawing near you so i now observe just going on the title guess i now observe isn't the and says that these prominent oregon's for kinds of the five
and objects or on my face
and so to my conscious mind actually as within my body
the buddha said to an end
you are now sitting in this target lecture hall looking at the j to grow where it where you're looking at the jail grow where is it at present
well on in one this many story pure lecture hall is in the garden of the benefactor of the solitary which is name were not refundable
at present the genogram is in fact outside the hall
ananda the buddha says as you are now in the hall what do you see first world on at once here in the hall i first see the to togheter
next i see the great assembly and from there as i gaze a word i see the grove and the garden
and why is it you aren't able to see the grove and the garden as you look at them
well honored one since the doors and windows at this great lecture i have been thrown open wide i can be inside the hall and look out and seem to the distance
the buddha said to another it is as you say when one is in a lecture hall and the doors and windows were wide open one can see far into the garden and growth could there be someone in the hall who does not see with photometer and yet sees outside the hall
so you know get the picture you can leave you can look through tugged is sitting like by the door but you don't see him you see on the outside the home you can't see anything inside know is that is that possible
no world on one to be in the hall and not see that started the who's in the hall and yet see the grow in the fountains this is impossible
and the doesn't ananda you are like that too
your mind is capable of understanding everything thoroughly
now if your present mind
which thoroughly understands everything were in your by as you just said it was then you should be aware first
of what is inside your body
can be living beings who first see inside their bodies before they observed things outside so the analogy so in other words by the same analogy you should be able to see your stomach and your intestines and all this year just like you can see that started the and not say how come if the minds in the body how come the mind is not able to perceive the inside device
seiu how come you can
you can see other people how can you can't see your own
how can we can have some cognizant something in a big sensation than but you can't you really don't know like who even knows like where's your liver and can those where it is namibian openings for you can you can see it can hear it
so if the minds inside the body how come it has no idea what the hell's going on inside the much and makes no sense vertices
even if you cannot see your heart liver spleen and stomach still the growing of your nails and hair twisted of your seniors and the throb of your pulse should be clearly understood
why don't we perceive these things
if you cannot perceive what is inside at all how can we perceive what is outside
therefore you should know that you state the impossible when you say that the aware and no way mine is in the body
you're right mind is not in the by
now
i suppose that if we were smart magicians may we would say well and that's not a very good argument doesn't prove that the mines not in the by
olivia that i don't know but a way for the purposes of the sutra the idea is that it proves that the millions notify now we are completely know what am i is known about and actually i mean in the mine isn't in fact
the visit because where would the she can find it if they try to to dissect brains you know they don't find them anymore they find brains but the brain isn't the mind but otherwise a dead person would be thinking advance but they're not the brain
like you put a dead person who has perfectly good i you can take the i have a dead person and put it another person and work right if so gifts of you know like than the detour and they have a brain
right but if you put that dead person up against taken to the movies and player in the mood and i see the movie rights they have eyes get a brain right so of the brain was in the body i'll come they can't see the movie or because it said i mean if the mind room bike has the mind is not in the bot it's nearly really not correct to say that consciousness
somewhere like inside the body so whether or not you buy food as logic here i think it's true right at the mine it's not really right to say that the is like inside the body
so what is what's to say what does is prove this sunanda like is his knees awaken on this point oh yeah okay yeah yes i realize now
it's another says that now that i heard that
i see that my mind is actually outside my body now i know
why for example a lamp a lightly room will certainly illumine the inside of the room first and only then will it pour through the doorway to reach the recesses of the hall for all living beings we do not see within their bodies would only see oxide them it the
is as if the lighted lamp were placed outside the room so that it cannot live in the room
so now i know that since i can see the outside but i can't see the inside my mind must be outside my body thank you would have straightened me out on this point
this principle is certainly clear it is absolutely beyond all doubt and exactly the buddha's entire meaning and so it isn't wrong isn't he said visit
the buddha said turn on all these pictures have just followed me to the city of travesty to beg
in sequence for food roll into balls and they have returned to the j to girl i have already finished eating but consider the beaches when one person eats does everyone get for
and then answered no and one why these pictures are our hearts but their individual lives differ how could one person cause everyone to before
the buddha told the know that if your mind which understands knows seeds and is aware we're actually outside your body as you have just said
your body and mind would be mutually exclusive
i
and would have no relationship to and them therefore if you ate somebody else could get for by would it be of which combines outside your body why would you get ball anyway
the body would be unaware of what the mind perceives in the mind would not proceed the awareness within the body
anyway this goes out of the western sky this conversation
and buddha basically every time the monotonous says the minds here the buddhist known that's the right and days where the buddha refutes all explanations
of where the mind could possibly be and he says the mind isn't anywhere
and even when you try to say the mind exists you can't say the might exist if you say it doesn't exist we can't say it doesn't exist any assertions about the mine from a dualistic standpoint
are going to be disproven by the buddha so it turns out that we have no idea
what our minds are and what processions
and as the sutra and falls on the good is going to show that
this very indefinable mind
only operates its functioning only occurs through
our senses through our six senses
so in other words we are we are you could say it this way we are the
tools of the limitless eternal buddha who is talking and walking seeing hearing and thinking through our activity so we're always in touch with this except we reduced it by are confused thinking to something very small called me
so there are many other the sutra consists of many many oh very very long dialogues this goes on like i say for some time and there there are many other than usually there's a conclusion and then another from the yes african another big law and discussion like that
but that's the bird known as the u s in summit
so
gee i was going to three volumes tonight and then are more or less than one foot soaking
but i'll redo just in conclusion where the last few minutes for comments
kiss ninety four of the who could record
this is this the following it's a direct quote from
sure i'm a secret
in the cases the sure gonna scripture says
when i do not see
why do you not see my not see
did you see my not seeing naturally that is not the characteristic of not seen
if you don't see my mat same with is naturally not a thing how could it not be you
the kind of slashed have you are known in in the sutra but
so it's econoday a wonderful
sort of mental yoga
as i often say no i think that the
i feel that the buddhist teaching
is none an assertion of anything
he that of believe for doctrine that is asserting anything it's actually a kind of
it's kind of intellectual
on-time process
letter words we buy our natural karma as human beings having the minds that we have naturally have mixed up thinking that finds us
we have to become free of that thinking and the buddhist teaching is a counter is like the mirror opposite of are confused thinking
so if we look at that mirror you know the confusion of our thinking reverses and we can be free of our confusion and see things as they are this takes some understanding intellectually like a meeting a suitor but as we found about already from under it also takes and or direct experience
direct vision of it through meditation practice
so
anyway it's actually not that complicated thing in the end
it's you could say
well
i wanted analogies i sometimes uses up
ah i remember a long time ago when i was a substitute teacher in eighth grade
which is very hard and to do because a faders a tough especially and substitutes
teacher sort of left precipitous there is no plan
so does his book there i picked it up a started reading these kids and is his book called sounder i came home and fifteen and young people smoke and there was this just page i opened to randomly with this wonderful description of a sharecroppers
kevin
ah and
this is like and out way out in a country surrounded by cotton fields
pitch dark but no street lights no houses or nothing so in this sharecroppers house there's a lamp
in there sitting around like a kerosene that some you're sitting on a way of talking and little boy who's the hero the story
little african american children and son of a sharecropper he walks outside the
house
and there's a circle of light at the from the lamp and he walks up the edge of the circle line and it goes beyond it
and he's not looking at the house now is looking out into the distance and it's like pitch black
so
this is how our life is
it's pitch bloatware this is our life is as vast darkness
and we light a lamp and the world that we live in is
this little cabin not lit by the alone but actually it isn't this big darkness by which we just put a level we don't know that we're living in this jaipur just we put a lamp on we think that this little house is like the entire universe we think that this is it
so naturally were crashing into things were which will feel like there's not enough space in know there's nothing in here i mean this is really terrible and the and lot of problems and his little past
but if we recognize that can grow houses really is vastness
then even if you were inside the house we would feel that spaciousness all the time
so that's really what it's point and
when you read seven volumes of these kind of arguments you begin you begin to get it
how thoroughly you are by you're thinking key to yourself in that little house and the looking out the window
so this is what so it's not so you know i don't want this to save to abstract or two
what's the word
verified a thing
this is really just and you know and we know about the darkness
there's not just a fantasy because we know that a mysterious it all is like
how could there be a child when it comes
preposterous thing how could this be
where did this scope for hundreds when someone dies
where where do we go how could that be and what does make this makes no sense from the point of view of all that we understand is that makes no sense at all course we understand how that the science of how babies are born but
do we really know how that really takes place a wide as i have not
not really the site doesn't explain when you asked the next question you find a company that last question that's not answerable
just like we can say
yeah was talking to a mediums were was some english and someplace where was i made me happy now
mexico years in mexico and i was talking about the twelve whole chain of causation and they were saying that that the cause of death his birth
but that is actually cause of death is birth every other cause of death is completely incidental
where is worth definitely those death there man have to be cancer whatever but he's going to be dead as long as just for someone of the women in the retreat was a physician
and she said i think that next time i fill out a death certificate i might write in a convent you have to write like this various lines you know the cause of death and when did this cause come into play how long as it so should i can't think i'll write like cause of death life and and heard and how long the discussed condition persists and i'll write down the age of the pay
patient and and see what actions
but
so what i'm saying is that
when it comes to these mysteries
which we conveniently don't pay much attention to because we can't stand them
we know them
that this is true that what we think the mind is what we think our life is can't be one of it it just can't because just as the buddhist shows a suitor it is really illogical that are that are very thinking in a very conception of what our life is really does not make sense it doesn't hold water except in
this very small room in the small realm it's fine when it comes to the ultimate questions of meaning or life and death clearly it doesn't hold up
and so buddha makes this point in turn to the secret

so i guess i will i won't give everyone here an honorable
chance to
not come to class anymore a few things given the limitations of the class so i guess what it's going to turn out as that each class will be a little bit like a bedtime story
since you know the test
yeah it'll be like hearing events i'm swearing and will i get was sleeping have a confession
but if you are given given the problems here and so forth
i'll understand with you
i don't want to come since you didn't know when you're doing something to know
to share this is pretty close
yeah was at the beginning of the yet get everything you review oh so we are good show okay well maybe you could maybe you could xerox and robbing us how many pages of or it's not as if romney yeah i could go well but maybe that's good or maybe
let me think
well read this is a bookstore it's only twenty dollars in vouchers three hundred and sixty down here
this much of a book well maybe i'll try to get ahold of that myself and her napkin i can try to focus on those parts that are in the book is one way to to seventy six gonna transfer
and they said that's only a third of the entire entirely yeah for this terrific i had neither them
that's a very old book in spite of gang
swimming hundred thirty yeah
okay well i'll turn it or take a look at that anymore
but instead are focusing your point
was a wonderful part that i wanted to next week about
the king himself talks about aging and and seeing
elizabeth discussion with movement
no name and them
anyone pastime be
that
he
an en route
yes i should an assessor who are usually will beginning of a class i tend to set the tone but yes we will have more discussion excuse me for going on so long that i i want to i think now we have a pretty good sense you know of what the suit or feels like
and but the scope of it is
so yeah as we go on we should stop and see what discussion or even if it was passed the phone could be mark the passage you to
as fuck man
oh my roof
yeah okay i do understand
i think about how to do them